Tag: oppression

Sierra Club official arrested for vandalizing Brownsville public mural with anti-SpaceX graffiti

11:02 am

Brownsville police today arrested Rebekah Lyn Hinojosa, a Sierra Club official, for spraying anti-SpaceX graffiti on the downtown mural painted by LA artist Teddy Kelly.

Hinojosa was taken into custody for spray painting the words “gentrified stop SpaceX” on a mural in downtown Brownsville. Hinojosa is the Senior Gulf Coast Campaign Representative for the Beyond Dirty Fuels Campaign, according to the Sierra Club website.

The level of ignorance illustrated by Hinojosa is difficult to measure. First, how can she think destroying art is no worse than “dirty fuels”?

Second, her belief that gentrification is somehow evil illustrates a truly profound close-mindedness and a refusal to notice that the prosperity that SpaceX is bringing Brownsville is helping everyone, poor and rich alike. She would be hard-pressed to find anyone who lives in Brownsville unhappy with SpaceX, if she made the slightest effort to ask — which she obviously does not wish to do.

Third, it appears she assumes her a short meaningless slogan constitutes a reasoned argument that will certainly change minds. And if she is right, we are truly doomed.

Hinojosa’s act however reveals the rising level of mindless hate against SpaceX’s achievements among the wine-and-cheese Democratic Party suburban crowd, the only people who really support leftist environmental organizations like the Sierra Club. They are beginning to marshal their forces to destroy the company, and sadly, their allies in the Democratic Party now control much of the government. At a minimum, expect serious delays at Boca Chica and with Starship due to this anti-capitalism campaign.

Hat tip to Robert Pratt of Pratt on Texas for letting me know about this story.

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Astroscale about to resume space junk capture test

10:06 am

Capitalism in space: After several weeks of delay due to unstated technology issues, the Japanese company Astroscale has begun maneuvers in its test to see if its robot satellite can approach from a distance and capture a target satellite acting as orbital space junk.

The Japanese startup has started moving its 175-kilogram servicer spacecraft closer to the 17-kilogram client satellite ahead of deciding whether to restart the demonstration, Astroscale said in a social media post.

According to Astroscale, it has made “good progress in working through solutions to the anomalous spacecraft conditions that we identified with ELSA-d,” or End-of-Life Services by Astroscale-demonstration.

The company did not disclose the nature of the issue, when it could restart the mission or the distance between the two objects.

That no specifics have been stated, and that the company also says it is “keeping regulators and key partners updated on our status,” suggests that maybe the problem wasn’t technical, but bureaucratic. Maybe some Biden administration functionary got nervous, and demanded Astroscale slow down the test so that he or she could review what was happening.

This would not surprise me in the least, though I admit it is nothing more than some wild speculation.

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Shetland spaceport in Scotland delayed

9:45 am

Capitalism in space: The proposed spaceport planned for the Shetland Islands in the United Kingdom is now delayed because a government planning committee has failed to put it on its schedule for discussion.

A spokesperson for SaxaVord UK Spaceport said the SIC has now confirmed to them that the application will not be on the agenda on Monday, and has given no clear indication when it will be discussed.

…The council’s development director Neil Grant said: “This is a complex planning application and recently there has been great deal of information flowing between the applicant, ourselves and statutory consultees. We are working hard to ensure this is presented to the planning committee for a decision as soon as possible.”

So there will be no confusion among my readers, this proposed spaceport is not the same as the Sutherland spaceport in Scotland, presently under construction. It is a competitor, and until recently faced opposition from environmentalists, who have now withdrawn their objections.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Wyoming school bans pictures of its kids learning to shoot rifles

11:50 am

Don't look! This picture might offend you!
Don’t look! This picture might offend you!

They’re coming for you next: Because it received complaints from unnamed offended individuals, the Wyoming Hot Springs County School District No. 1 decided to remove pictures and a post on its Facebook page showing middle school students learning to shoot air rifles.

Last week, the district shared a photo of some fifth- and sixth- grade students from Thermopolis Middle School working on their marksmanship with air rifles. “Mr. Deromedi’s 5/6th PE classes are working on their marksmanship with air rifles!” the now-deleted post stated. “All students passed their safety test and have been sharpening their skills.”

Without explaining why the school district removed the post, Superintendent Dustin Hunt said he regretted that it was “found offensive by others.” [emphasis mine]

Apparently, the Facebook post received a lot of attention, getting 66,000 shares and 6,000 comments, most of which were positive, according to reports that viewed the post before it was removed. A handful of commenters apparently were hostile however:
» Read more

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Firefly savior Max Polyakov gives away his stock

9:58 am

Capitalism in space: Forced by the Biden administration to leave the smallsat rocket company Firefly Aerospace because he is not a U.S. citizen, the billionaire Max Polyakov — who brought the company back from bankruptcy — has now sold his 58% share to the company’s founder, Tom Markusic for one dollar.

His announcement of this decision did not speak well of the federal government:

I am giving up for 1 usd consideration all my 58% stake in Firefly to my co-founder and partner Tom. Dear CFIUS, Air Force and 23 agencies of USA who betrayed me and judge me in all your actions for past 15 months . I hope now you are happy . History will judge all of you guys. Max love Ukraine and yes I have Ukrainian passport and I am Founder of Firefly !!! Bye my “bird” and at the end of the days I proud what I done for my Land soul and heritage !!!

While it is generally not a good idea to have a non-U.S. citizen controlling a rocket company, Polyakov’s record here was outstandingly positive, for the U.S. Moreover, the Ukraine is a strong ally of the U.S., or used to be. To force him out for no reason seems irrational. A more rational approach would have been for the government to insist on monitoring his actions closely, so that only if he appeared to be acting against our interests would it act.

Polyakov’s decision to give Markusic the company further proves his good will. Too bad we have now lost him.

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FAA administrator, a Trump holdover, announces resignation

9:41 am

FAA administrator Steve Dickson yesterday announced that he will officially resign from the agency on March 31, 2022.

Dickson was appointed by President Trump in 2019 to a five year term, so his resignation now cuts his term short by two years.

Dickson gave as his reason for resigning a desire to spend more time with his family, the go-to explanation for every Washington official’s resignation. While this may be true, I can’t help wondering if friction and pressure from the Biden administration contributed to his decision.

For example, though Dickson’s record with private enterprise has been mixed, his record in connection with commercial space was mostly good, working to help the new launch industry prosper by keeping out its way as much as possible. This record was especially obvious with SpaceX’s operations in Boca Chica, where there was little regulatory effort to slow that work until Biden became president, and even then relatively little. It could be the Biden administration was unhappy with this approach, and was trying to force Dickson to regulate SpaceX more.

A new administrator, appointed by Biden, will certainly be less friendly. Based on most Biden appointees in the past year, the administration will likely want to put someone in place who is hostile to capitalism, favors a communist agenda, and wants to impose strong government control. Thus, this resignation almost certainly puts another nail in the coffin of SpaceX’s desire to launch Starship test flights from Boca Chica.

Then again, that new administrator would have to be approved by the Senate, and right now, based on the Senate’s 50-50 split between Democrats and Republicans, it will be difficult for the Biden administration to get a radical leftist approved. This difficulty will be further magnified by Biden’s horrible poll numbers as well as similar polls suggesting a bloodbath for Democrats in the mid-term November elections. For them to force through an extremist in this position now will not help those poll numbers.

I therefore predict the nominee put forth by Biden will likely mouth empty support for private enterprise during the confirmation hearings. If the Senate Republicans are fooled by this disingenuousness (something that has happened frequently), when confirmed that person will immediately act to impose the government’s will on most commercial operations, especially those by SpaceX.

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Pushback: Three school board members recalled in San Francisco

11:10 am

London Breed, mayor of San Francisco
San Francisco’s Democratic Party mayor London Breed,
who now takes full control of school board.

Vote the bums out! Voters in San Francisco yesterday ousted three members of the city’s seven-member school board members because of their focus on renaming schools honoring American heroes like Washington and Lincoln while refusing to reopen the city’s schools or deal with its budget issues.

School board president Gabriela López, vice president Faauuga Moliga and commissioner Alison Collins were all stripped of their positions during a special election, according to tallies by the San Francisco Department of Elections.

Furious parents launched the recall effort in January 2021 after arguing the school board was pushing progressive politics instead of acting in the best interests of children amid the pandemic.

…The recall effort was launched as the school board was trying to rename 44 school sites that it said honored public figures linked to racism, sexism and other injustices — including Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and trailblazing US Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).

Critics argued the push made a mockery of the country’s racial reckoning — as parents demanded to know why the board would waste time renaming schools when the priority needed to be reopening classrooms. The board eventually scrapped the plan after widespread uproar.

Opponents had called the recall a waste of time and money given the district is facing a number of challenges, including a $125 million budget deficit and the need to replace retiring Superintendent Vincent Matthews.

» Read more

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Astronomers form lobbying group to block development on Moon’s far side

9:14 am

Lunar zone reserved solely for astronomers
Lunar zone reserved exclusively for radio astronomers

In order to allow them to someday in the future maybe consider the idea of possibly building space-based radio telescopes on the Moon, astronomers have now formed a new lobbying group to advocate the creation of a zone more than a thousand miles wide on the Moon’s far side where all future development will be forbidden.

The new committee is chaired by Claudio Maccone, an Italian SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) astronomer, space scientist and mathematician. Maccone supports creation of a Protected Antipode Circle or PAC, a large circular piece of lunar landscape about 1,130 miles (1,820 kilometers) wide that would become the most shielded area of the moon’s far side.

“PAC does not overlap with other areas of interest to human activity,” he said. “PAC is the only area of the far side that will never be reached by the radiation emitted by future space bases located at the L4 and L5 Lagrangian points of the Earth-moon system.”

In view of these unique features, Maccone believes the PAC should be officially recognized by the United Nations as an international protected area, where radio contamination by humans is curbed, now and into the future.

In other words, these astronomers want to be given, for free, full ownership of the region in the center circle on the graphic above for future radio telescopes, even though at present they have no plans or projects to build such things.

Though the idea of creating a region protected from radio signals so that good radio astronomy can be conducted has merit, no one should have the slightest sympathy for this request by astronomers. Why should anyone give them this vast amount of real estate when astronomers have shown so little interest in building any telescopes in space, anywhere?

Only after the astronomical community finally proposes an actual radio telescope for installation at this site should this request be given the slightest attention. Before that, it is merely a stupid power grab by elitists who deserve nothing from nobody.

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FAA delays Starship approval again

1:03 pm

Death by a thousand cuts: The FAA today announced that it is once again delaying the release of the final version of its environmental reassessment of SpaceX’s Boca Chica facility, the PEA, that will allow Starship orbital launches to occur there.

The FAA intended to release the Final PEA on February 28, 2022. The FAA now plans to release the Final PEA on March 28, 2022 to account for further comment review and ongoing interagency consultations.

Though the draft PEA had approved SpaceX future Starship operations at Boca Chica, all signs continue to point to heavy resistance to making that approval official both within the Biden administration as well as those other “interagency consultations.”

I predict that the FAA will delay again, and it will delay repeatedly month by month as agencies like Fish & Wildlife and NOAA refuse to go along. The only one who could break this deadlock would be President Biden, and the only chance he or any of the people running his administration will do so is if they decide to reject the FAA’s reassessment to instead demand a new and full environmental impact statement, which would likely take years to complete.

Texas politicians might want to wake up. If SpaceX fails to get this approval it will shift its Starship operations almost entirely to Florida. I must also add that politicians across the nation should wake up as well, because if the Biden administration blocks SpaceX, the many year delay for the launch of Starship will likely impact many many businesses nationwide. It will also negatively impact NASA’s effort to land humans on the Moon this decade.

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The lie that was COVID

12:25 pm

How governments determined policy against COVID
How our governments determined policy against COVID during
the past two years.

Almost two years after the first arrival of the Wuhan virus into the United States, we now can look back at what has transpired and come to some solid conclusions about this respiratory illness as well as the draconian panic-based responses by governments and many citizens.

The most significant take-away from this review is simple: Routinely, government officials, especially those in states controlled by Democrats, lied repeatedly in order to create fear and terror in the general population. Almost every claim they made, edict they declared, or mandate they ordered, was either an outright lie, or designed to obscure the truth. Let’s take them one-by-one.

The models

Almost immediately, politicians, health officials, and government scientists began touting a variety of computer models, with the model [pdf] put forth by scientists at Imperial College leading the way, that claimed millions would die if some short-term draconian measures were not taken immediately. Governments and corporations had to impose very temporary two-week lockdowns, social distancing, and mask mandates to slow the spread of COVID in order to reduce the immediate impact and thus avoid hospitals and health facilities from being overrun.

In other words, we were told that by simply under-going two weeks of martial law, the curve would flatten, hospitals would be able to handle the increased but controllable influx of patients, and we could then go back to normal.

This was an outright lie. » Read more

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SES and Jio Platforms form partnership to launch broadbrand satellite constellation

9:02 am

Capitalism in space: Luxembourg’s satellite company SES and India’s Jio Platforms have formed a partnership to launch a new satellite constellation designed to deliver broadband services to the Asian and Indian market.

This new satellite constellation, dubbed Jio Space Technology, aims to compete with both OneWeb and SpaceX’s Starlink constellation. Like OneWeb, which is half owned by an Indian company, Jio Space has direct links to India that will give it an advantage over SpaceX. In fact, it appears from the formation of this new company as well as the OneWeb UK/India partnership, that the powers-that-be in India are working together lock SpaceX from that market.

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Lockheed Martin cancels merger with Aerojet Rocketdyne

8:52 am

Capitalism in space: Faced with a lawsuit from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) opposing the merger, Lockheed Martin yesterday announced that it is terminating its effort to buy Aerojet Rocketdyne.

Aerojet released a press release at the same time, insisting that the company remains viable and healthy, but there are doubts. While its rocket engines (its main business) remain technically reliable and well-built, they are relatively expensive. Moreover, the shift by rocket companies to build their own engines in the last decade has reduced its customer base significantly.

This loss of market is now compounded by a battle between two factions on the company’s board of directors.

While monopolies do not encourage competition, the merger with Lockheed Martin would have been mostly good for the rocket industry. It would have quickly given Lockheed Martin the skills to make rockets, and kept Aerojet Rocketdyne alive, albeit as part of another company. Now the latter faces extinction, and the former will need more time to develop the capabilities required in its recently-won NASA contract to launch a rocket from Mars to return samples.

And once again, the FTC lawsuit indicates that the Biden administration has decided to take a heavy-regulatory hand when it comes to business. The result however of this approach in this case has not produced more competition, but the likely bankruptcy of at least one company.

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Judge blocks Camden spaceport land purchase pending March 8th vote

8:36 am

Capitalism in space: A state judge has blocked Camden County in Georgia from purchasing any land for its proposed spaceport until after the county’s citizens vote on approving or rejecting the spaceport project on March 8, 2022.

Superior Court Judge Stephen Scarlett’s injunction delivered a new victory for the residents and environmentalists who’ve remained critical of the county’s ambitious plans to launch rockets off Georgia’s coast toward sensitive barrier islands.

This week, a probate court judge ordered a March 8 election after a petition circulated by opponents received enough signatures for a referendum asking if the county should repeal its land-acquisition agreement with Union Carbide Corp. for the former industrial site where an environmental covenant restricts use of the land.

Essentially, the project will live or die depending on how county residents vote.

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Today’s blacklisted Americans: Private school makes enemies list of parents

3:31 pm

Lovett ememies list
Click for original.

Blacklists are back and the Democrats (and their supporters) have got ’em: Two officials at the Lovett School, an expensive private K-12 school in the Atlanta area, have assembled an enemies list of “insubordinate” parents.

The picture to the right is a screen capture of an email sent to one of these officials, Jennifer Boutte, director of community relations, showing the list of parent enemies (blurred out to protect the privacy of these individuals). In it one official, Cholle [sp?] Wabrok, thanked Boutte for apparently assembling the list, adding

It is long overdue. I am disgusted by some of these parents, need to prioritize our efforts as some have too much influence. Our watch list — to keep hard-copy only?

» Read more

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NASA/NSF express collision concerns for SpaceX’s Starlink constellation

10:00 am

Capitalism in space: In a February 8th letter to the FCC, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and NASA expressed their concerns about the collision possibilities of SpaceX’s full 30,000 satellite Starlink constellation with other spacecraft.

The letter raised several issues about the proposed constellation, primarily because it would increase the number of tracked objects in low Earth orbit by more than a factor of five. “An increase of this magnitude into these confined altitude bands inherently brings additional risk of debris-generating collision events based on the number of objects alone,” the agency stated. “NASA anticipates current and planned science missions, as well as human space flight operations will see an increase in conjunctions.”

The letter did not oppose the constellation, but simply outlined issues that the agencies thought SpaceX needed to address before the constellation’s full deployment. It also noted that these concerns apply to other planned large satellite constellations.

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Pushback: Oral surgeon sues state for shutting down his practice for refusing COVID shots

11:38 am

Oral surgeon Stephen Skoly, blackballed by Rhode Island
Oral surgeon Stephen Skoly, blackballed by Rhode Island

Don’t comply: Stephen Skoly, an oral surgeon in Rhode Island, has sued both his governor, Democrat Daniel McKee, and the head of the state’s health department, James McDonald, for shutting down his dental practice — serving 800 patients monthly — and preventing him (and his ten employees) from earning a living, simply because he has decided for medical reasons not to get the COVID shots.

Skoly, who’s been a dental surgeon since 1990, requested medical exemption from the COVID-19 vaccine because of his history of Bell’s palsy paralysis, the complaint says, and he says he has “natural immunity” against the virus because of a “blood test” that confirmed he has COVID-19 antibodies.

More information here.
» Read more

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Rogozin’s salary rockets upward

9:24 am

The salary of Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Roscosmos which runs Russia’s entire space industry, has grown from a mere $100K when he took over in 2018 to $1.3 million in 2020.

During the most recent year for which salary data is available, 2020, Rogozin was paid $1.3 million—and this does not include perks of the job, such as four vehicles, real estate holdings, spousal pay, and possibly off-the-books income. Before his imprisonment, Russian critic Alexei Navalny released an investigation of Rogozin and the corruption at Roscosmos that delves into some of these benefits.

Rogozin has seen a stunning rise in his fortunes since coming to Roscosmos. Before his move, he earned about $100,000 per year as deputy chairman in the Russian government. In 2018, his salary jumped to $513,000, and in 2019, it went up to $639,000.

By way of comparison, NASA, which has a budget several times larger than that of Roscosmos, pays Administrator Bill Nelson an annual salary of $185,100.

Rogozin is merely doing what all high level managers in Russia do. They get a job, and while there suck as much cash from it as they can before moving on or getting fired. The gigantic and fast increase in these numbers suggest Rogozin does not expect to remain in charge that much longer.

This pattern is very similar to what happened in the Roman Empire. The Caesar in Rome would appoint governors to the various outlying provinces in Germany, France, England, and the Middle East, who would then skim off for themselves as much cash from tax revenues as they could get away with, then retire back to Rome to live the good life. Meanwhile, governance in those provinces would suffer, to the point that eventually the empire fell.

Rogozin appears to be doing the same in Roscosmos, which suggests not much will come from its many projects to come up with new rockets, spacecraft, and space stations in the coming years.

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Pushback: Huge increase in homeschooling in VA

11:46 am

Home-schooling: a example of liberty in action
Home-schooling: a example of liberty in action

Because of oppressive and racist policies that include mask mandates, remote schooling, and the teaching of the bigoted and Marxist program dubbed Critical Race Theory, Virginia has seen a huge increase in home schooling in the past two years.

Homeschooling in Virginia has increased by nearly 40% since 2019, which has been partly fueled by the implementation of critical race theory in classrooms and the coronavirus. “The children don’t belong to the state. I think parents really want to impart their own values to their children – their values and beliefs and their own worldview. And that is a major reason parents are home schooling,” Yvonne Bunn, director of government affairs for the Home Educators Association of Virginia, told the Virginia Mercury earlier this month.

There are currently about 62,000 homeschoolers in Virginia, according to Virginia Department of Education data. There were 44,226 homeschoolers in the state during the 2019/2020 school year, marking a more than 39% increase. The numbers this year are slightly down from the 2020/2021 school year, when 65,571 students were homeschooled.

» Read more

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Astronomers organize lobbying group to block satellite constellations

10:13 am

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has now created an office to lobby governments worldwide to block the coming commercial launch of numerous satellite constellations.

The IAU claims that the first goal of this new office will be to study the effects of these satellites on ground-based astronomy accompanied by an effort to work with industry to mitigate those effects.

That is a lie. This is the office’s real purpose:

Another role for the center will be to create national and international laws and norms for what regulators allow in orbit. “We need to codify these good intentions, to have some backup,” says Richard Green of the University of Arizona’s Steward Observatory. “We’ll take a two-pronged approach: Cooperate and develop legislation to apply if necessary.” IAU and other bodies are working to convince the United Nations’s Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space of the need for legislation. “We are confident that we will have guidelines that will have to be followed by companies in the near future,” Benvenuti says. Cosmologist Aparna Venkatesan of the University of San Francisco says it would be good if there were laws in the United States and elsewhere that echoed the influential U.S. Clean Air Act: “Many of us dream of a Clean Skies Act.”

Rather than realize that things are changing and Earth-based astronomy is becoming obsolete, the astronomers wish to use the force of law to block progress by others so that they can continue to live in the past.

The time to have moved all cutting edge astronomical research off the planet arrived more than three decades ago. The astronomers refused to recognize this, focusing instead on building giant telescopes on the ground that had less capability than the Hubble Space Telescope and were dogged by political and engineering challenges that hindered their success.

Had astronomers instead focused on building many small orbiting optical telescopes, the threat of satellite constellations now would be minimal. Instead, astronomers would be poised to build the bigger space-based telescopes they need. Instead, they are grounded, with the needed future space-based telescopes possibly decades away.

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Pushback: Doctor suspended for opposing mandates sues hospital

1:39 pm

Dr. Mary Bowden, refusing to bow to the authorities
Dr. Mary Bowden, refusing to bow to the authorities

Pushback: Mary Bowden, a doctor who was suspended from working at Houston Methodist Hospital because she publicly opposed COVID shot mandates and used ivermectin in treating her Wuhan flu patients, has now sued the hospital to get data on the effects, pro and con, of those shots on its own patients.

The hospital had accused her of “spreading dangerous misinformation which is not based on science” because she had successfully treated about 2,000 COVID patients, none of which ever needed hospitalization, with both ivermectin and monoclonal antibodies.

Bowden apparently has publicly advocated choice by both doctors and patients, something the lords at Houston Methodist cannot tolerate.

Bowden added, “We all know that early COVID treatment works, it saves lives, and I’m not going to be silenced, intimidated, or bullied by Houston Methodist, Houston Chronicle, or anyone else who wants to target physicians that question the narrative.”

In November, [her Attorney Steve] Mitby said that Bowden had never peddled disinformation, as a Stanford University-trained physician who has had vast experience in treating coronavirus patients. “She is helping her patients, through a combination of monoclonal antibodies and other drugs, to recover from COVID. Dr. Bowden’s proactive treatment has saved lives and prevented hospitalizations,” he said at the time. “Dr. Bowden also is not anti-vaccine as she has been falsely portrayed. Dr. Bowden has opposed vaccine mandates, especially when required by the government. That is not the same as opposing vaccines.”

Hospitals nationwide have been blocking doctors from considering these other treatments, even though there is building evidence that they work. Bowden’s own success is an example of that evidence.

The lawsuit is not seeking damages. Instead, it wishes to obtain from the hospital its data on its own success at treating the Wuhan flu, as well as what it has gained financially by that treatment.
» Read more

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Pushback: Cop wins $75K settlement for being punished for praying

11:19 am

A victory for liberty in Louisville
A victory for liberty in Louisville

Do not comply: Policeman Matthew Schrenger has won a $75,000 settlement from the city of Louisville, Kentucky, for suspending him after he prayed, while off duty, in front of an abortion clinic.

Officer Matthew Schrenger was off-duty when he stopped to pray with his father on the public sidewalk outside the EMW Women’s Surgical Center nearly a year ago, on Feb. 20, according to the Thomas More Society. Schrenger arrived in the early morning, before the abortion provider opened, as part of 40 Days for Life, an international grassroots campaign dedicated to ending abortion through prayer and fasting.

Matt Heffron, senior counsel for the Thomas More Society, previously said that Schrenger, a 13-year police veteran, was praying the rosary, according to the local Fox affiliate, WDRB News.

For his actions, Schrenger was suspended for more than four months with pay, stripped of his police powers, and placed under investigation.

» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted American: HS student suspended for expressing opinions in private texts

1:16 pm

The Bill of Rights cancelled at North Carolina State University
Freedom of speech banned at Plainwell High School.

They’re coming for you next: The faculty at Plainwell High School in Michigan suspended student David Stouts for three days because he dared to express his Christian religious beliefs in private texts to his friends.

Some of the things he discussed were the love God has for sinners, Stout’s love for his friends, and, here is where the “problems” began, Stout said he believed homosexuality is a sin and….drum roll…there are only two genders!

Before Stout was suspended, he claims he was asked by a faculty member [band leader Austin Hunt] why he didn’t turn himself in for his private discussions involving religion and “inappropriate” jokes shared amongst friends, (Stout allegedly chuckled at homophobic/racial jokes his friends made during band camp in July 2021).

Stout claims he was informed that speaking about religion on campus was verboten because he might hurt someone’s feelings, and that students who overhear his opinions (on text message???) might feel “unsafe.”

» Read more

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The first signs of a coming revolution for freedom — from the next generation

1:16 pm

A little child shall lead them, by James Johnson
“A little child shall lead them,” painting by James L. Johnson.

If there is any hopeful sign coming out of the last two years of Wuhan panic, it might be the long term reaction of the young to how the political community has treated them.

Let me explain. For decades it has been assumed, quite rightly, that the young would automatically gravitate to the Democratic Party. That party’s tendency to favor social programs based on helping everyone fit well with the young’s lack of experience, their natural instinct to think emotionally, and their personal lives so tightly bound to their school’s social community. The young lived in a type of emotional and socialist existence, so it was natural for them to instinctively favor the socialist ideas based on feel-good emotions put forth routinely by the Democratic Party.

Polls and voting patterns have consistently for decades proven this assumption to be true. For example, small college towns found the politics of their communities suddenly shift significantly leftward when the voting age was lowered from 21 to 18. The large but temporary college population in their towns, mostly leaning left, suddenly swamped out the more moderate voting patterns of the smaller general population.

This assumption has also been illustrated by many get-out-the-vote campaigns put forth by the Democratic Party. Rather than try to get voters of all stripes to vote, the Democrats would routinely focus these campaigns inside college campuses, a tactic that for decades has repeatedly brought them great success.

Above all — and most important — the Democratic Party never put forth policy proposals that would offend the young. Instead, the party would aim its policies at businesses, which the young did not own and would thus not be impacted by any negative consequences of any new leftist laws.

The Democrats love affair with “green” policies is a perfect example. A campaign to save the planet from global warming is something that sounds so good to the emotionally-driven young. For children under eighteen environmental issues would especially resonant. They would naturally like the high-minded idealistic sounding goals of environmentalism while feeling none of the negative effects of its sometimes draconian regulation. When these youngsters reached voting age they would thus instinctively pick the Democratic Party as their home, since it had portrayed itself as the true representative of their idealistic but very naive beliefs.

Environmentalism is just one of a whole slate of policy positions taken by the Democrats, from poverty to police abuse to civil rights, that have been designed to please the young without impacting them negatively in any way. The result has been a young population that routinely favored in great numbers the Democratic Party.

The Wuhan panic however has changed this situation radically. » Read more

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New Mexico legislature dumps space tourism sales tax proposal

9:05 am

Capitalism in space: A committee in the New Mexico legislature yesterday rejected a space tourism sales tax proposal submitted by two sponsors, one from each party, essentially killing the bill.

The vote to kill the bill was 9-1, with the only yes vote coming from the Democrat representing Albuquerque.

That the tax was voted down so conclusively suggests there actually might be some brain cells among the elected officials in New Mexico. Hard to believe, considering that the tax was actually proposed at a time when New Mexico’s only customer for space launches, Virgin Galactic, is in trouble and might go bankrupt. Raising its taxes would likely have only guaranteed that company’s failure.

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Today’s blacklisted American killed himself because of the slander campaign against him at NC State

12:16 pm

The Bill of Rights cancelled at North Carolina State University
Freedom of speech cancelled at NC State.

They’re coming for you next: Blacklisted, attacked, ostracized, and subject to violent threats because he happened to be conservative and had publicly defended such ideas, Chadwick Seagraves, an IT employee at North Carolina State University, killed himself three weeks ago.

The attacks against him were part of an effort to get him fired by NC State, based entirely on anonymous accusations that slandered him as a bigot and racist and “white supremacist”, even though there was no evidence of such things. His anonymous accusers also claimed Seagraves had doxxed about 1,400 leftist activists, including members of Portland’s Antifa organizations, based on no evidence. The college, after an investigation, soon agreed that there was no evidence, and decided he would not be fired or punished in any way.

This wasn’t good enough however for our modern American Stasi storm-troopers. According to an email Seagraves sent to NC State professor Stephen Porter (who has himself been blacklisted by these storm-troopers and has sued the university because of it):
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Data: COVID shots are killing little kids

5:06 pm

COVID mortality rates among children 10-14 in theUK

Data compiled by the Office of National Statistics in Great Britain shows that giving young children the COVID shots, especially those aged from 10 to 14, makes their mortality 10 to 52 times higher, depending on the number of shots received.

The graph to the right, from the link, illustrates this starkly. If a child gets one shot, the mortality goes up about ten times. If a child gets two shots, it increases the mortality another five-fold, or about fifty times greater than for children who get no shots at all.

The article at the link also notes that this data was gathered when 10 and 11 year olds were not eligible to get COVID shots. Thus all 10 and 11 year olds at that time fell into the unvaccinated category, where the death rate was low. However, since October 31, 2021, kids in Great Britain in these age brackets began getting shots, which means that we should expect deaths in these age brackets to rise. This also suggests the 52 times increase in childhood deaths caused by the COVID shots is likely understated.

Since the chances of death from the Wuhan virus itself among these children is practically nil, it is insane to give them these shots. Any government official who advocates it, such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, should be fired at once. At a minimum, such fools should certainly not be listened to or used as a guide for establishing any government health policy.

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NASA’s second SLS mobile launch tower now behind schedule

10:47 am

Par for the course: According to one member of NASA’s safety panel, the contractor building NASA’s second SLS launch tower, is having performance problems and is already behind schedule.

On Thursday, during a meeting of NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, one of its members provided an update on Mobile Launcher-2. George Nield, an engineer and scientist who previously led commercial space transportation for the Federal Aviation Administration, said the 90-percent design, review, and fabrication drawings for the large structure are behind schedule. These are the engineering drawings that should closely represent the final design and inform a construction schedule and logistics plan.

“Mobile Launcher-2 has encountered some challenges,” Nield said. “The selected contractor, Bechtel, has experienced some performance issues associated with underestimating the complexity of the project and some supplier related issues, as well as COVID.”

Note that NASA spent about $1 billion on the first tower, to be used only three times, at most. Its contract with Bechtel says the second tower will cost $383 million, but no one expects that number to be met.

Assuming Bechtel does not go over budget (hah!), NASA will have spent $1.4 billion on SLS’s launch towers, one of which will be used two or three times and then abandoned. That’s three times the cost of what SpaceX spent developing Falcon Heavy, and about a third the total development cost of Starship/Superheavy, including its planned launchpads in both Boca Chica and Florida.

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Israel, overrun with Covid, proves the vaccines have failed and must be abandoned

11:43 pm

Link here. The analysis is data driven, extensive, and thorough. It shows that with each COVID shot and booster the effectiveness against the Wuhan virus goes down, and in fact eventually reduces a person’s immunity against the virus. Key quote:

Israel is first, always.

Other highly vaccinated and boosted countries are a few weeks behind, and their boosted patients may still have some partial protection against severe disease and death. (People who received two doses last winter or spring probably have none at this point, if the data out of Scotland and the United Kingdom are to be believed.)

But that won’t last. The Israeli experience this month could not be clearer. A third dose does not provide long-term protection. When it fails, the boomerang effect is severe. Hospitals come under even more pressure than they would in a “natural” Covid wave, because the vaccine failure is highly synchronized – everyone becomes exposed at once.

And so – insanity upon insanity – the Israelis are offering a fourth dose.

Why would anyone believe at this point that a fourth dose will help for more than a couple of weeks? Not months, weeks. The trend line was obvious even BEFORE Omicron arrived; and Omicron drives vaccine efficacy down even more quickly. In countries with good data, vaccinated people actually are more likely to be infected than the unvaccinated.

Further, a fourth dose is likely to have MORE severe side effects – remember, the second and third doses produce notably increasing levels of heart inflammation in men, and mRNA therapeutics were repurposed as vaccines because of problems with toxicity after repeated dosing. [emphasis mine]

I am beginning to believe the reason so many lovers of the COVID shots want to force everyone else to get them is because they realize the facts above, either consciously or unconsciously. They are terrified of the consequences for themselves, and thus resent those who are not in the same boat. Rather than face their mistakes and admit error, they instead want no one to escape. Everyone has got to get the shots, so that everyone is equally in danger.

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Today’s blacklisted American: United suspends pilot and prohibits her from getting another job for refusing COVID shot

1:08 pm

United Airlines: Run by fascist clowns
United Airlines: Run by fascist clowns

They’re coming for you next: Because pilot Sherry Walker has refused to get a COVID jab, United Airlines has put her unpaid active leave, which prevents her by contract from getting another job, and also prohibits her from accessing her 401(k) account.

Walker told Fox Digital on Monday that she is considered an “active employee” after being put on unpaid leave for not complying with the airline’s vaccine mandate in November. “That means that they can call us back with two weeks’ notice at any given time, they can just grab us and pull us back. But because we’re active, we haven’t had a qualified lifestyle change. So Schwab, which owns our 401(k) accounts, refuses to let anyone access them,” Walker told Fox.

Walker added that employees in similar shoes have been prohibited from finding other jobs because United has cracked down on non-competes. “In this case, they have said that no, no outside employment. In fact, you must go through ethics and compliance, and it can’t be a company that we could have … a non-compete” with.

And why might United be doing this?
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China’s plans to dominate space revealed in a new Chinese government white paper

11:53 am

China's 2022 white paper on space

The new colonial movement: The Chinese government today released a white paper summarizing in broad terms what it has accomplished in space over the past five years and what it intends to do in the next five years.

If this white paper is ignored by western governments, the ramifications to human freedom and civilization in space will be profound, and quite likely tragic.

You can read the English text of the white paper here.

The paper makes clear China’s considerable successes and advancements in the aerospace sector since 2016. It ramped up its manned program with the launch of two prototype space modules followed by the on-going assembly of its fullsize station. It has successfully landed probes on the Moon and Mars, and brought back samples from the former. It is presently upgrading or replacing its older rockets. It has launched a full constellation of Landsat-type Earth-resource satellites. It has expanded its satellite communications and broadcasting capabilities. It has completed its 30-satellite GPS-type constellation.

And that’s only a short summary.

The white paper then outlines China’s ambitious plans for the next five years. Three areas are of greatest importance.
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